


It's Not Just the Food That's Delicious

by lillianmmalter



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-28 23:23:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7661191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lillianmmalter/pseuds/lillianmmalter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt's wallet is hemorrhaging money, the soles of his shoes are wearing thin, and he's starting to fear for his waistline, but he can't help himself. The offerings of his new favorite food truck are good, and the owners are delicious - especially the dark haired one. If only he could get up the nerve to ask the guy out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Not Just the Food That's Delicious

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hazelandglasz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazelandglasz/gifts).



> For hazelandglasz who prompted: "One of them has a food truck and the other runs around the city to get to him (not necessarily just for the food ;))"
> 
> Thanks to my beta, Ellix, and to my second reader, K, who assured me this was both cute and funny. I hope it's something like what you wanted.

It started perfectly innocently, as most things do. Kurt was hungry, and the food truck was there, so he bought something. Simple, really.

It didn’t phase him that the blond guy who sold him his sandwich was cute; a lot of people were cute. And it didn’t make him laugh too hard that the food truck was called Foodie Call; a lot of businesses had clever names. He did raise a skeptical eyebrow at the claim that they sold _healthy_ comfort food, but when he bit into his grilled apple, arugula, and gouda sandwich, flavors burst in his mouth like a fireworks show, and he moaned in such an obscene way that a grandmother walking a toddler through the park glared at him as she passed by. She clearly had no idea what heaven he was eating and he ignored her with a viciousness he hadn’t utilized since high school.

He followed Foodie Call on Twitter before he finished chewing his fifth bite.

Even that was done with the most innocent of intentions, but it was definitely where the trouble started.

Foodie Call tweeted pictures of their menu in typical food porn style every time they came up with a new recipe, or sometimes even when they were just particularly proud of how pretty a particular dish came out. They also tweeted directions to wherever they happened to set themselves up, which was expected, and the primary reason Kurt followed them in the first place.

The real problem, the catalyst for everything that followed, was that they also tweeted pictures of their staff in action.

Foodie Call was owned and operated by two men. Two young, cute men Kurt wouldn’t necessarily say no to a booty call with if they asked him. The blond one who served Kurt the first time he ate there was called Sam and his business partner, a very charming guy who always made Kurt smile no matter how bad a day he was having, was called Blaine. 

For the first few weeks he followed Foodie Call online, the pictures of Sam and Blaine were fun candids of one or the other of them messing around in the tiny kitchen, shopping for supplies, or sampling some of their food before they opened for the day. Occasionally they would also post pictures of one of them hugging happy customers at crowded events. 

These pictures warmed Kurt’s heart, reminding him that he didn’t have to be the cynical businessman he was sometimes afraid he was becoming. There was joy in the world, and friendship, and good food, and not just the empty one night stands he’d somehow fallen into having when he discovered most gay men his age didn’t care for the romance he came to New York craving to find.

Then one day the Foodie Call Twitter account posted a sun-streaked close-up of Blaine tilting his head up to the light like some sort of angel descended from Kurt’s wildest teenaged fantasies. Kurt’s breath caught in his throat and he stared at the picture for a good five minutes until his boss passed by his desk asking about his latest report.

Kurt only heard about every third word his boss said, his mind still caught on the picture of Blaine hidden on a tab three down from the spreadsheet he instinctively opened when he heard footsteps behind him.

Blaine was handsome, classically so, with tanned skin and dark, well-groomed hair, even if someone did need to tell him go easy on the product. He wore bow ties more often than not, at least according to the pictures Foodie Call tweeted and Kurt’s own interactions with him. Kurt was definitely one to appreciate a well-made bow tie, and even more one to appreciate the person who could pull them off.

And boy, could Blaine pull them off.

Suddenly, Kurt wasn’t following the Foodie Call Twitter to see if they were in his part of town at lunch time, he was following it to see when and where they were set up at any given time of day, often taking extended lunch breaks to dash across town to wherever they were parked. A couple of sandwiches over the course of a couple weeks quickly turned into sandwiches or soup or a pile of some delicious eggroll thing called lumpia almost every day. His wallet was positively hemorrhaging money, but the food was good and the men serving it were delicious and he simply couldn’t help himself.

At least all the running around he was doing counted as a workout to counter all the food he was eating. The state of his shoes could definitely vouch for that.

 

Mercedes was the first one of his friends to call him out on it, which made sense as they were roommates and theoretically spent more time together than they did with the rest of their friend group. Or, at least they used to, before his finances turned him into a hermit stuck watching Netflix food documentaries in his room every night while she went out and celebrated being in the city in her twenties.

“Kurt, I need to talk to you,” she said after the fifth weekend in a row he turned down one of her invitations out. “Are you doing okay?”

Kurt paused the episode of _Aarti Party_ he was watching and turned to look at her.

“Of course. Why do you ask?” 

“You never come out with us anymore. I don’t think you’re depressed, but you’ve always been good about hiding those sorts of things-”

Kurt took a deep breath and interrupted her before she could go any further with this line of thought.

“‘Cedes, I’m not depressed, or having a mental breakdown, or anything you might be thinking. I just don’t have that much money right now so I’m trying to cut back on some of my expenses. That’s it.” 

“I thought you just got a raise?”

Shit. Excuse. What was a plausible, not-crazy excuse?

“Well, I did, but most of that is going straight into paying off my student loans, so it can’t really make much difference in improving my social life.” That much was true at least.

“Isn’t your dad helping you with that?”

“Yeah, but he’s got his own life to pay for, he doesn’t need to be paying for mine too.”

She gave him a look. “I’m pretty sure that’s part of the parenting contract they make you sign when you have a baby: I, the undersigned, do hereby agree to be responsible for the physical, emotional, and financial well-being of this new person for the next 18-25 years of their life.”

“And I’m 26,” Kurt said, giving her the same look he often wore when they talked about Rachel’s continued dependence on her dads. He loved the girl, but they both agreed she needed to grow up.

“Kurt…”

“Look, I’m trying to be a grown-up here, ‘Cedes. If you want to hang out so much, let’s have a night in. We could watch that movie, _Burnt_. You can’t go wrong with Bradley Cooper, and don’t we keep saying we want to watch it and then never do?”

“Well-”

“Oo! We could turn it into a movie marathon! _Burnt_ and _Chef_ and _The Hundred-Foot Journey_. You know I love me some Helen Mirren.”

“Okaaay,” Mercedes drawled, looking at him like he was crazy. “Not that I have any problems with that, but why the sudden obsession with movies about chefs? And why is our Netflix suddenly all shows from Food Network? Do you have something you need to tell me?”

Kurt froze. Shit. He hadn’t even been listening to himself, he’d just thought of a good theme and run with it. It figured it’d be inspired by Blaine and his food truck, just like everything else he’d done for the past few weeks.

“Kurt?”

He sighed and looked at her. This was gonna suck.

“Okay. So I kind of lied.”

Mercedes gave him a confused look before narrowing her eyes at him. “Lied about what?” she asked. “What’s going on, Kurt?”

He bit his lip and looked at her. He only just said he was trying to be an adult and here he was acting like a little kid. It was time to man up and face the consequences of his actions.

“I’ve been going to this food truck for the past few weeks.”

She stared at him, completely nonplussed. “What?”

“I’ve sort of been going there for lunch. Every day. For the past few weeks. That’s why I don’t have any money to go out anymore. And why I’m apparently more than a little obsessed with food.”

“A food truck?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve been ditching us for weeks because of a food truck.”

Kurt squirmed where he sat on the sofa. “Um. Not on purpose, but yes.”

“What, is the food laced with crack or something? What could possibly be so great about a food truck that you’d spend all your money at one?”

“Foodie Call would never corrupt the purity of their sandwiches like that!” Kurt exclaimed. He could hear the fanaticism in his voice, but ignored it. No one should be allowed to insult the best food in the world, not even Mercedes.

“Foodie Call?” she asked.

“It’s a pun.”

“Yeah. I got that much. But Foodie Call?”

“Well, the guys who own it, they’re really cute. Like, _really_ cute.”

“Uh huh.”

“The kind of cute you wouldn’t necessarily say no to if they asked you for a booty call.”

Mercedes just looked at him, her arms crossed, and Kurt felt himself blush. She shook her head and asked. “Boy, please tell me you aren’t bankrupting yourself for eye candy.”

“The food’s good! I have to stop myself from making sex sounds when I eat it.”

Mercedes scowled at him. “I know more about your sex sounds than I ever needed or wanted to know. That’s not exactly a selling point.”

“No, that’s how good it is. It’s like a really good orgasm.”

“Because of a sandwich?”

“Yes.”

She still looked skeptical, but shrugged her shoulders. “If the food’s that good, then I have to get in on this. But if I’m not blown away, I’m confiscating your credit card for the rest of the month and forcing you to come to my church’s choir practice with me. You clearly need something else occupy your free time.”

Kurt sighed at the prospect, but he knew it wouldn’t actually come to that. He agreed.

 

That weekend, Kurt tracked Foodie Call to Fort Greene Park and the two of them joined the long line of people waiting to buy food.

“See?” he said to her. “All these people agree with me.”

“All these people are clearly here for the free concert and taking advantage to get something to eat before the show starts. This proves nothing.”

Kurt rolled his eyes at her obstinacy, but shuffled along with the line. She’d eat her words in no time. Literally.

They chatted lightly as they waited, and Kurt took the opportunity to see who was manning the window today. His heart skipped a beat when he saw that it was Blaine, wearing a bright polo and bowtie combination that perfectly complemented the eye-catching turquoise and yellow art on the truck.

He had to stop himself from sighing loudly in admiration. The man did know how to dress to great effect.

“Hi, Kurt!” Blaine greeted him when they got to the front of the line. Kurt’s breath caught in his chest.

“You know my name?”

Blaine grinned. “Of course I do.”

Kurt beamed at him until he remembered why Blaine probably knew his name. “Because I basically stalk your food truck, right?”

“No!” Blaine laughed. “Well, maybe a little, but that’s not the only reason.”

Mercedes elbowed Kurt in the side.

“Are you here for the concert?” Blaine asked.

“Partly. I’m also trying to convert my roommate to your food. She doesn’t believe me about how good it is.”

Blaine’s smile widened. “In that case, we’ll do our best not to disappoint.”

Kurt saw Sam lean over to peek out the window, his face changing when he spotted Mercedes. When Kurt glanced over at her, she was blushing. A shot of vindication ran through him and he tried not to smirk.

“So, what can I get you?” Blaine asked.

“Mercedes was interested in your stuffed pepper wrap, right ‘Cedes?”

She jerked her attention away from Sam and nodded at him. She was definitely blushing.

“And for you?”

“Surprise me. I’ve never had anything here that wasn’t delicious.”

Blaine beamed at him. “Oo, a challenge. I like it.”

He told them the price for their meals and ran Kurt’s credit card. A few minutes later, Sam handed over their orders with a wink to Kurt and a courtly bow to Mercedes, whose face flamed red again. Kurt thanked him and let him get back to work; the line was at least as long as it was when they joined it.

Kurt and Mercedes found a spot on the grass with decent views of both the stage and the Foodie Call truck and dug into their food. Sam had given Kurt the grilled apple, arugula, and gouda sandwich he’d first ordered from them, which made Kurt smile fondly in remembrance. He told himself it was probably just a coincidence, and dug in. It was just as good as he remembered.

Mercedes let out a quiet moan after her first bite and Kurt smirked victoriously.

“It’s good, right?”

She rolled her eyes and sighed, but she was smiling. “Yes, okay? It’s amazing. You win.”

“So you won’t take away my credit card or make me go to church?”

“I won’t take away your credit card or make you come to church with me. Even if I still think you need the community.”

“Not my community.”

Mercedes mock-glared at him, then glanced over to the Foodie Call truck.

“So those guys seemed really nice. They both like you a lot. Especially the one who took our orders.”

“Of course they do. I’m practically keeping them in business all by myself.”

Mercedes bumped her shoulder into his. “Boo, you should go ask Hottie Bow Tie out!”

“Are you crazy? You don’t just hit on people in the service industry. It’s rude!”

“Excuse me?”

“He’s not nice to me because he likes me, he’s nice because it gets him good tips and keeps me coming back.”

“You’re tripping. That guy was totally flirting with you.”

“Because he’s in the service industry, Mercedes. Do you have any idea how many gross ignoramuses I flirted with waiting tables in college?”

“And you class yourself with them?”

“Of course not, that’s not the point,” Kurt huffed. “The point is that you don’t hit on people in the service industry, especially not while they’re working. You lose, like, ten million cool points or something, even if they do like you.”

"So, you're saying I shouldn't call this number the blond one slipped in my food wrapper?" Mercedes asked, holding up a napkin with a phone number very clearly scrawled across it.

"Oh my god! Mercedes!"

"Will I still lose 'cool points' if I call him?"

"No! You should absolutely call him. Sam's a great guy."

"But you're too good to ask out Bow Tie Man."

Kurt sighed. "It's not the same thing at all."

"Sure it isn't. Scaredy Cat." Mercedes rolled her eyes and dug back into her wrap, humming happily as she chewed.

Kurt glanced back over to the service window of the food truck and watched Blaine smile as he said something to his latest customer. Damn, he was cute.

Blaine looked up briefly and their eyes met. Kurt imagined Blaine’s grin widened in the few seconds of eye contact before he had to turn his attention to his next customer, but he shook the thought off as thoroughly ridiculous and fanciful. Maybe Mercedes was right. He did need a new hobby, preferably one that didn’t involve eating ridiculous amounts of food.

 

A week later, after days of lightly flirting with Blaine and not so lightly putting down Mercedes’s attempts to coax him to just ask the man out already, Kurt exited the dressing room of a menswear boutique in Bed-Stuy to see Blaine browsing the displays closer to the front of the store.

He panicked.

He wasn’t proud of his reaction, but he couldn’t help himself. Kurt darted behind a clothing rack and bent over so his face was obscured, pretending to examine the weave of one of the jackets.

Shit. This was so awkward. You weren’t supposed to run into hot food truck guys in a trendy clothing store. Though it would explain where he got his excellent selection of bow ties.

“Kurt?”

“Blaine! Hi!” Kurt said, shooting upright and plastering what he hoped wasn’t a manic grin on his face.

“Hi!”

Blaine’s smile lit up his entire face and half of the room they were standing in. It made sense to Kurt then why he worked in a food truck instead of a restaurant; he needed the vastness of the outdoors to diffuse his brilliant personality.

“Hi.”

Blaine’s smile widened a little and Kurt wanted to smack himself. They’d already said that.

“Adding to your already stellar closet?” Blaine asked.

Kurt shrugged a shoulder, hopefully casually, and looked away from Blaine’s face. He’d never be able to string a full sentence together if he was looking straight at him.

“Scoping out future sales. A little retail therapy never hurt anyone. Especially if it’s just looking and not buying.”

“That’s the tricky part, though,” Blaine said, holding up a handful of bow ties. “If you’re not careful you could get yourself in trouble.”

Kurt laughed and took a closer look at Blaine’s selections.

“May I?” he asked, reaching out to take them before he even realized what he was doing. Fortunately, Blaine handed them over without a fuss.

“You’re not going to put me on the worst dressed list, are you?” Blaine asked.

“For these?” Kurt asked, sorting through the variety of patterns and mentally matching them up with what he remembered Blaine wearing in the past. “Never.” He shifted a couple of rejections to his other hand and returned the rest to Blaine. “I admire a man who can pull off a bow tie.”

Blaine blushed a little, looking thrilled, then glanced down at the ones still in Kurt’s hand. “Are those a no, then?”

“These ones are a no.”

“So, do you work in fashion? I’ve always wondered; you’re so well-dressed every time I see you.”

Kurt stopped himself from doing a happy shimmy. Blaine _wondered_ about him. “I used to, for about six months” he said. “Then I got a job offer that actually paid, so.”

“You weren’t getting paid?” Blaine asked, looking worried and outraged on Kurt’s behalf.

“Internship.”

“Ah. Unpaid internships: the new form of legal slavery you actually have to pursue to suffer,” Blaine said, nodding. “I had a couple of those before I got sick of it and quit to start up Foodie Call with my roommate. Never looked back.”

“You and Sam were roommates?”

“Still are.”

Kurt blinked. “You must really like each other then.”

Blaine laughed and shook his head. “Trust me, if either of us could afford our own places in this city we’d stop living on top of each other in a minute. I mean, I love the guy, obviously, or we’d have killed each other ages ago, but it’d be nice not to have to worry about him bringing home some girl after we’ve spent twelve hours in the truck together. Or beating all my high scores when I’m not home.” He looked annoyed for a moment at this particular slight, then shrugged. “It could always be worse. At least we’re not sharing a studio.”

Kurt shuddered. “That is way too little personal space. Though I can’t say much. My first apartment in the city didn’t even have walls. My roommates and I put up curtains for privacy, and, well.”

“They didn’t really give you much privacy?”

“Nope. Especially not when they ignored the rule that a closed curtain was like a closed door. I mean, hearing my friend, Rachel, have sex with her skeazy college boyfriend was bad enough, but then she kept walking in on me when I was changing, and I never intended a girl to see those parts of me.”

Blaine laughed and Kurt tried to tell himself that it wasn’t oversharing if the person you were talking to was interested.

“So, what made you get into the food industry?” Kurt asked, hoping to change the subject. “I’ve heard the hours are terrible if you actually own something.”

Blaine chuckled and ruefully rolled his eyes. “Whoever you heard that from wasn’t lying. Sam and I only give ourselves one day off a week, and even then we sometimes struggle to cover expenses. But I’d rather have to be creative with our shopping lists or dock my own pay every once in a while than have one of us murder the other one because we snapped from working too much.”

Kurt was appalled. “Are you serious?”

“It’s really not that bad,” Blaine said, grinning. “We knew it would be hard work going in, but we both love it, so it’s worth it.”

“Still. Only one day off a week. And you live together, and you work in the cramped quarters of the truck. I think I’d have snapped within a month.”

Blaine shrugged. “It’s not for everybody.”

“Well, everybody can’t cook as well as you do either.”

“I guess that’s true,” Blaine said, blushing. “You keep coming back at least.”

Kurt steeled himself. This was it. This was his moment. He took a deep breath and took a chance.

“I have a confession to make,” he said. Blaine cocked his head to show he was listening. “I don’t come to your truck every day just for the food.”

“You don’t?”

“No. See, one of the guys who owns it is really cute, and charming, and makes my days better just by smiling at me, and I’ve kind of gotten addicted. To him and his food.”

There was that smile again, the one that put the sun to shame. Then, in a flash, it turned a little mischievous before Blaine gave him a sympathetic smile.

“Sam will be thrilled you think so highly of him; it’ll really make his day. But I’m sorry to tell you, he’s straight. I mean, I get it, I’ve been there, he’s great crush material-”

Kurt whipped his arm lightly with the rejected bow ties and Blaine broke down laughing.

“Jerk. And here I was gonna invite you out to lunch or something.”

“Lunch would be great,” Blaine said, his face glowing with sincerity again. “There’s an amazing Peruvian place a few streets down, if that sounds like something you’d be interested in.”

Kurt pretended to consider this and gave a coy shrug of his shoulders. “I’ve never had Peruvian food before.”

“It’s amazing. You’ll love it.”

Kurt smiled to himself. “I’m sure I will.”

**Author's Note:**

> Foodie Call is the name of an actual food truck I found online (though I'm pretty sure the real one isn't owned by Blam), and I stole their name for this fic because it made me laugh. I really hope they don't find out and sue me. ^_^;;
> 
> Researching food trucks was actually a lot of fun, and I'm full of admiration for the people who sacrifice so much of themselves to run them and give us delicious, delicious food at not exorbitant prices. 
> 
> Btw, there's a superhero-themed food truck I found in Detroit that almost beat out Foodie Call for the theme of Blam's truck, because what could be more them than superheroes? But I decided to go for the pun instead. It really made me laugh.


End file.
